Memorial--Arthur L Scott

This is not technically an obituary. According to the text, good old Mrs Robertson wrote this paper to be read at the Grange meeting in tribute to Mr Scott. When not being constrained by the form of an obituary, Mrs Robertson really lets her creative juices flow.

From 23 December 1904 Hesperia Union

IN MEMORIAM.
Paper read by Mrs Mary Robertson before Hesperia Grange:
"Brother Arthur L Scott for whom we are called to mourn, and whose memory we shall ever cherish, was born in 1854, was married to Ianthe Belle Hain, October 2 1880, and solved for himself the mystery of mysteries the 24th day June 1904.
"His Grange associations began when he was quite a young man. In his official life he has filled nearly every chair in the subordinate and Pomona Grange. he was everywhere an efficient officer, especially in the Lecturer's and Master's chair. He was a great thinker, a searcher after knowledge, and all his rich finds he laid at our feet. His intellectual feats nourished and strengthened us from time to time. We have known what it was to have him with us; we realize what it means to be without him. he stayed by and worked for us as long as he could. His wife's health failed and he was obliged to leave the farm and seek medical aid for her, and the last eight years of his life was the test of his manhood. Put yourself in his place; eight years of awful suffering for her, eight years of patient endurance for him, yet he never shirked a duty, no one ever heard him complain, he always did everything cheerfully. Thus the terrible physical pain of the wife was met by the patient tenderness and indomitable fortitude of the husband. he was often baffled in skill and distressed in mind, but he stood his ground heroically, sparing himself never, until he was seized by the fatal disease which finally ended in death after two years of patient suffering and he passed first into the beyond.
Our brother died at his post and the saddest part of it is, he died away from home and the dear ones who never deserted him, sacrificing for him their all. but he was tenderly cared for and all that was left of a dutiful son and tender husband, was placed in a beautiful casket, covered with flowers presented by the different orders to which he belonged, and brought home by a faithful friend.
He went out like the Quarry Slave at night, scourged to his dungeon; but sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust, approached his grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch around him and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Of him as a brother in our order, a kind husband in the home, an exemplary man in the community, it may be truthfully said, he has fought a good fight. And in view of these noble traits of character and in order that his memory my be perpetuated, be it
Resolved, That a suitable page in the records of Hesperia Grange be set apart in which shall be written the record we have just read. And be it further
Resolved, That a copy of the above memorial be prepared by our Worthy Secretary and transmitted to the family of our deceased brother, and printed in our local paper.
Mary Robertson
Neil McCallum

Good old Mrs. Robertson. Of course this isn't a classic obituary. It is however reminiscent of earlier times when these kinds of memories were often recorded. Today with television and such, such little niceties often fall by the wayside.